Samsung's attempt to block iPhone 4S sales "doomed to fail"

Stuart Corner
Monday, 17 October 2011 16:56

IT Industry - Strategy

Samsung is seeking a temporary injunction in the Federal Court to have sales of the iPhone 4S blocked in Australia claiming it infringes a number of Samsung patents, but patent analyst and blogger Florian Mueller says the move is doomed to failure.

He argues that the patents in question have all be declared essential to 3G communications systems and points out that a similar tactic by Samsung in Holland failed last week with the judge there making it clear that Samsung cannot seek an injunction on such patents.

"I'd be extremely surprised if an Australian judge took a different perspective on FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing commitments." Mueller wrote in his blog.

Furthermore, he added "on Thursday a court in Southern California ordered Qualcomm to provide Apple with documents that may prove that Qualcomm is licensed to those Samsung patents, in which case Apple, which uses a Qualcomm baseband chip in the iPhone 4S, would be safe due to the concept of patent exhaustion (you get paid once but can't double-dip)."

He concluded: "The odds are very long against Samsung overcoming all of Apple's defences."